Indiana Speaker of the House John Gregg and State Sen. Mark Blade attended the ground-breaking ceremonies on the 300-acre site at 6200 Darwin Road, West Terre Haute, IN.

The plant's first construction phase entails the installation of two combustion turbines operating in simple cycle by June 2002. The second phase is the installation of two initial combustion turbines converted to combined-cycle by June 2003.

The project is providing 300 construction jobs for four years and 25 highly-skilled permanent positions, according to the company's fact sheet on the plant.

Mirant officials are confident the plant will meet or exceed air emissions standards and air quality requirements set by the Indiana Department of Environmental Management and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

"The plant water usage will not affect the neighborhood well water availability or the normal regiment of the Wabash River," Mirant says in its fact sheet.

Phase 1 will use an average 260 gallons per minute of well water. After Phase 2, the plant will use a total average of 2,430 gallons per minute of river water, less than 0.4% of the seven consecutive-day low flow calculated over a 10-year period (7Q10).

The site is six miles southwest of Terre Haute, IN and three quarters of a mile east of the Indiana/Illinois state line.